Several traveller's look back over the snow and ice at the threatening black clouds. They likely hope winter is not coming early this year.

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In character material goes here. Anything OOC should be in that thread or in spoilers here. Character speach should be in italics. Languages other than common can go in a 'spoiler=language' if you like.Character's internal thoughts should be in spoilers. combat actions should be in spoliers and have a bold header for each action.Dice rolling will be by invisible castle. (google it)

Scene 1: The Lure of the NorthBeyond the charts of even the far sailing Nordvolk lies seas covered in ice, barren mountains and rolling deserts of snow. The few inhabitants of these unexplored lands are savages and monsters favoured by the harsh gods of winter. At least that is what everyone believed. However last Autumn a chance meeting with a wealthly Nordvolk Huscarl-Sailor with a tongue loosened by drink has led you to believe great riches could be gleened in the north. It seems the Huscarl’s Jarl had discovered the villages of the savages of the north contain a great wealth of luxurious furs and ivory and has taken to raiding, “you can barely expect honor from foriegners let alone savages so trading would be futile” he drunkenly proclaimed. Your plan was simple, keep the secret of the wealth of the savages to yourselves, head north with a few trade goods bringing songs for the long winter and swords to drive back the Nordvolk raiders come the Spring. For this you hope to be paid handsomely in ivory and furs.Travelling beyond the edges of maps the first villages of the Ice-People you encountered were burned, plundered and empty. Houses of seal skin and whale bones empty and picked clean like corpses. Forced to follow the ice-locked coast further north you wonder if you will find a living village soon, If not you will have to turn back before the endless night of winter. Already there are scant few hours of daylight.

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Please draft a paragraph describe yourself and your reaction/feelings about the current situation

bolo having spent many days "sunning himself" as he calls it though the snores that have been heard would tell otherwise crinkles his nose as the caravan approaches the destroyed village "And to think the the civiliszed folk consider these peoples savages. he says spitting after savages.

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Jesus loves you, he died for your sins. Protoman hates you, he died﻿ for them twice. - Anonymous

Killishandra jumps down from where she's been riding on the lead wagon's buckboard, her heavily-treaded boots making a loud skrunch! in the snow. Drawing her sword, its blade as black and unsettling as her own fathomless eyes, she plows relentlessly into the ruins to begin yet another doubtlessly fruitless search for survivors or clues.

She had been the last to join the caravan, a traveller across the eastern sea from a land calling itself the Golden Empire. When asked why she wanted in, she had simply answered "There will be blood."

Killshandra finds that the strange houses of the ice people have been roughly ransacked. Great holes have been cut in the seal skin walls. The supporting whale ribs are smashed in two and show signs of an aborted attempt to burn them down. There is a conspicuous lack of anything valuable or of corpses. The amount of snow covering the site indicates this happened a while back. If the raiders came by sea it must have been before the ice covered the sea to the horizon. Anything more would require a skilled tracker. Deep night is only a few twilight hours away...

From the middle of the caravan and then moving toward the front, comes a half-chanting song, starting from a hoarse whisper but gaining tone and strength.Kieri's has been a popular voice in the weeks on the trail, not just because her voice and songs made the caravan welcome in distant untrusting holds, but also have often made the long miles pass seem less tiresome.

The chant bears itself on the wind, capturing the ear of any folk of the north in the caravan, a story they had heard before.

...And when the brothers come to Samsey, they see two ships lying in the cove, which is called Munway. Those ships were a kind of small warship called an 'ash'. They thought these ships must belong to Hjalmar and Odd. Then Arngrim's sons drew their swords and bit on their shield-rims, and the berserk-state came on them. Then six of them went onto each of the ashes. And there were such good warriors on board, that they all took up their weapons, and nobody fled from his post, and no one uttered a word of fear. And the berserks went up one side and down the other, and killed them all. Then they walked up onto the land roaring.

Hjalmar and Odd had gone up onto the island to see if the berserks had come. And as they walked out of the woods to their ships, the berserks came out of the ships with bloodied weapons, and then the berserk-state went off them. And they became weaker then that at other times, as after some kind of sickness. And Odd intoned:

Then Hjalmar said to Odd, “Do you see there that all our men have fallen, and it appears to me most likely now that we will all be Odin's guests in Valhall tonight.”

And that, men say, is the only word of fear that Hjalmar spoke.

Odd answers, “My advice would be this: that we get away from here to the wood, because the two of us will not be able to fight those twelve, who have killed the bravest men who were in Sweden.”Then said Hjalmar, “We will never flee from our enemies, but rather endure their weapons. I will go to fight a berserk.”

We face the choice of Hjalmar and Odd and the day is fading. What shall we do?

"Paghqa'!"1 she curses in her birth mother's gutteral tongue. Peering into the coming gloom with eyes meant for the dark of the oceans, she returns her blade to its scabbard. "You go hungry today, my friend."

#There is always tomorrow.#

Killishandra makes her way back to the others as Kieri's words die away, untroubled by the stillness and signs of violence past that surround her. She calls out brusquely in the common tongue of this new continent so different from the Golden Empire she had abandoned, raising her voice to be heard above the low melancholy drone of the wind.

"Same as before! All gone!" Her accent is not as heavy as it had once been, but it is still noticeable. Yet another thing that sets her apart, but over this aspect at least she has some measure of control.

"Tonight, we should stay here, I think," she continues as she draws closer. "Put animals in big hut there, put tents around it. Maybe get a little warmer. I think you like that, yes?"

Those inpenetrable alien eyes fall upon the only member of the group even more abnormal in appearance than her.

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Translation:[1] Again, there is nothing.

Given that Killishandra is basically a character from the fringes of the Cloak & Dagger setting, her accent should be Italian or Latin, but in my head I can't hear her speaking with anything except a Russian accent.

Kaze stands in the back of the caravan, ruefully observing the gutted remains of the village. He lowers his head and closes his eyes, and in a low voice recite something like a prayer, meant to remind any lingering spirits that this place holds nothing more for them and that they should move on. He's finished by the time Kieri begins her chant, which Kaze listens to with great interest. As Abbot Gyatso told him when he asked why the abbot so enjoyed listening to old stories, 'We tell the tale of heroes to remind ourselves that we also can be great.'

He further recalls the day he left the monastery, a young and over-eager man, telling the abbot that he couldn't just sit around and wait for enlightenment, he had to go out into the world and search for it, earn it one experience at a time. The abbot had simply smiled, and told him 'Seek enlightenment, but do not be foolish enough to expect enlightenment' and bidding him a good journey. Many years and many miles later, could he say he was any closer to enlightenment now than when he left the monastery? He did learn humility over the years, so perhaps it hasn't been a total waste of time.

The chant ends, and the woman with the cold eyes suggest they make camp in the remains of the village. Kaze agrees, but doesnt voice his opinion; he seldom speaks without someone speaking to him first. He does prepare to help the caravan with whatever decision is made, stay or go.

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"After all is said and done, more is said than done."- AesopMortality clarified in a single strike!

Killishandra's black eyes met with the eyes of flamelike orange and gold, barely visible from beneath the huge hood of a heavy furred cloak. The being huddled beneath it was bundled in heavy woolen clothing, hunched over and perched almost vulture-like atop a central wagon; his hook-like, black claws tightly gripping the wood. A small cloud of white, sulfrous smoke rolled out of the hood and dissipated into the air as he vented a snort.

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'If I have any kin... I surely won't find them here', he thought. 'This place seems difficult to survive even for the more warm-blooded.' He was hardly surprised that the other races preyed upon one another here, they did so in less harsh environments, where the need to fight over resources was far less pressing. What always surprised him was the excuses they made for it. The Jarl's in particular seemed humorously hypocritical.

'Ah well. This is where the wind has taken me. So be it. Perhaps there are ice drakes in these lands, and there will be legends to follow. And treasure, if there is any to be had, is always welcome...'

Picking up a long hafted polearm with one clawed hand, Vashkar reached up from beneath the cloak with the other and pulled back his hood to get a better look around, his catlike pupils instantly slitting against the harsh wintery light. The head beneath the hood was revealed to be reptilian; with long, wedge-shaped jaws and rough reddish scales. In fact, from the horny beak scale that tipped his muzzle, to the long horns that swept back from his head and the webbed crest that crowned it, it resembled nothing so much as the head of a small dragon.

Vashkar leapt from the top of the wagon to the ground, landing on two feet and one hand. Rising up straight... at least as he ever seems to stand, he snatches a large bag that was tied off the back of the wagon and with a gutteral grunt and trundles over to the large hut that Killishandra indicated. He parcels out a portion of the bag's contents -- dried dung from the beasts of burden -- and makes a pile outside the hut, starting a low fire by carefully exhaling sparks onto the pile until it catches. Once he seems satisfied that a fire is established, he places around it several good sized flat stones which he produced from various folds and pockets in his clothing and wrappings.

"Let those warm," he rumbles in a gravelly voice. "I will need them when I get back."

Then, as loathe as he was to expose himself further to the elements, he unbound his cloak and dropped it to the ground. Even wrapped as he was in cloth, the rest of Vashkar's form was rather draconian, though he stood on two legs on the balls of his clawed feet. His neck and torso were elongated, compared to a human's, making his legs look a bit short proportionally; and when not bundled under his cloak he had a habit of leaning forward with his long tail swept out behind him for balance. If he stood fully upright he would probably be almost eight feet tall. But the real distinguishing feature was clearly visible now: A pair of leathery wings folded against his back.

Hunkering down, he leapt into the air, all the muscles in his legs and back seeming to uncoil like iron springs in concert to launch him skyward. Once at the apex of his leap he snaps his tail downward and unfurls his wings... the flexible membranes billowing like sails as he claps them against the air with each downstroke, propelling him forward and upward. With just a few flaps he is already quite high in the air and he gracefully banks into a turn, beginning a spiraling search pattern.

In flight Vashkar resembles a drake so well that an untrained eye might be fooled... if the observer wasn't sure how close he was. It's an appearance that has been an advantage at times. As a foe he is terrifying; but with a band of entertainers, he is sometimes an attraction... the closest thing to a real dragon that any commoner is likely to ever see... and live to tell the tale, at least.

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Vashkar's sharp eyes scan over the landscape, looking for any signs of the attackers or possible survivors that haven't been swept away by the cold wind...

jumping down from the caravan and rolling out the young pech finally stands to his full three feet. a looking like a small caricature of a human in his fur lined studded leather armor he looks around considering the thought of camping in this spot, "my people have man superstitions about sleeping in the shadow of death. though not given to such ideals myself, I cant say i am too comfortable staying so near a site of a recent massacre especially if one of the other village sends out scouts and finds us here, we would have much to answer for."

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tumble1d20+10=25he has no athletics so all i can hope for is a good landing.

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Jesus loves you, he died for your sins. Protoman hates you, he died﻿ for them twice. - Anonymous

"This damage? Not so recent," the towering dark skinned woman shrugs the objection aside as she pulls her sword free again and uses it to cut through one of the whale bone struts of what was presumably once the civic heart of this village. The black steel does its work eagerly, and she easily pulls aside the new, larger entrance way to allow its new occupants access. "Whoever lived here, is not coming back I think."

since a 3' pech lands with only 1/8th the force of a 6' human don't worry about jumping down unless the distance is greater than about 6', probably should be even further than that but it is easier to treat characters similarly where possible.Similarly, in real animals when hieght doubles strength squares and wieght cubes. Pech should be stronger per pound than humans. So no special problems jumping up or across. As a multi referee game best we be guided by RAWEDIT: from OOC distance fell was about 8-9'. My bad.

...as leathered wings drive the false drake upward. From above the scene is one of white sent orange by the low artic sun. Ice on the sea, snow on the rolling ground and in the far distance an ice cliff where another glacier leaves a range of mountains for the sea.

Although young by human standards, but a spinster by goblin, Grandmother feigns the appearance of an old crone, and keeps huddled up in her heavy winter cloak...

Scuttling down from the cart she mutters, “Amateurs....”. Spitting. “This is the work of amateurs. Proper raiders would have finished the job. On the other hand smart ones would have left the village intact. No villagers, means nothing left to raid. Nothing to raid, means no raiders. This is the work of amateurs.”.

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Its all big talk, for show, though. Secretly, she. worried. The tents indicate the villagers were migratory, and could take their entire village with them if they needed too. The fact that they left it behind, indicates few, if any survived to do so.

“There are no bodies, so someone cleaned up. Those that didn't get taken for food or slavery, probably fled with what ever the carry, and from the look of it, that wasn't much. At least they're efficient amateurs”.

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While she appears to be surveying the village, she's actually surveying the landscape, looking for approaches for most probable path of attack, and the best avenue for defense.Tactics 1d20+91d20+9=14

“Now, if I were an amateur where would I attack from?”, she mutters as she chews absent-mindedly at her pipe, glancing side ways at the landscape.

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What the blex are you starring at berk? Are you going to rattle your bone box or just keep piking around?